visible rhetoric

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch who was martyred in the year 107.  The church remembers him very well for he was the successor of St. Peter in the church of Antioch where for the first time the followers of Jesus were called Christians.  St. Ignatius became also the first to refer to the Christian community as catholic by calling it the Catholic Church.  St. Ignatius is well remembered because while he was being brought to Rome to be executed he wrote letters to different churches along the way.  When he arrived in Rome escorted by soldiers he was led to the amphitheater where he was devoured by two fierce lions.

Last week we began reflecting on the tenth article of the faith which says, I believe in the forgiveness of sins.  And I invited you to reflect silently on this article of our faith and its implication in us.  Do you really believe that sins can be forgiven?  Do you believe in your heart that God can change his mind about you and about everyone else?  Do you believe that God is more powerful than all the sins in the world?

In our gospel today the ten lepers shouted to Jesus their plea, Jesus have pity on us; Master, have mercy on us.  To ask for mercy is more than just to beg for a feeling of compassion.  Mercy is not just heartfelt sorrow, mercy is not just an empathy for the suffering.  Mercy goes further.  Mercy seeks to remove suffering.  When a person asks for mercy he is asking that his suffering be taken out, that his suffering be removed.  A merciful person shares in the suffering of another and he will do everything in his power to take away the misery of the other, even to take it upon himself.  This is what the ten lepers begged from Jesus.  By saying, “Lord have mercy,” they were begging Jesus, they were begging God to remove their pain.  Only God can dispense mercy, and mercy can be asked only from God, for only God can remove suffering. 

We continue our reflection on the 12 articles of the creed and we are now on the tenth article where in we profess saying, I believe in the forgiveness of sins.   We believe in the forgiveness of sins.   Have you ever spent time just reflecting silently on this article of the faith?   Did you ever ask yourself the question, do I believe that my sins are forgiven, do I believe, really believe that God forgives my sins, Do I believe that God forgive also the sins of others?   Sometimes we take it for granted perhaps, that God forgives us.   But many times it may be a scandal to us that God forgives others too especially those we find difficult forgiving.

In a bible class once, a participant asked me, did God stop doing miracles?  Why I asked?  Because, he said, in the bible we always find God doing miracles. He would fight for them in their battles, he will send rain why the earth is dry, God will cause a spring of water to rise when they are thirsty, he will rain bread to feed them when they are hungry, he even set water aside so that his people can cross the sea by walking on dry land.  Even in the time of Jesus he did a lot of miracles.  He cast out evil spirits, he straightened hands withered by abnormality, he multiplied bread and fish, not just once but twice, he calmed the sea and commanded the wind to die down, he even raised the dead to life.  So many miracles.  But now no more.  Did God stop doing miracles?  This is also the cry of the prophet Habakuk. “I cry for help,” he said, “but you do not listen.” Is this the result of what Jesus in the gospel is saying?  Are there no m...

“Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” The disciples were returning from their apostolate and they were happy with what they did, they were satisfied with the people they have helped, and they came back rejoicing and Jesus rejoiced with them.  But Jesus took this occasion to remind them the real source of joy.  It is not on what they did, it is not on the powers they possessed, it is not on miracles they performed.  Rather Jesus said, rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

Two lessons: First, today Chorazin and Bethsaida were condemned because they did not believe, and much worst, they did not see the miracles performed by Jesus in their midst.  I think this is also our difficulty today, the difficulty to believe and the difficulty to even see miracles.  Why is it difficult to believe in the mighty deeds of the Lord?  Why is there difficulty in seeing his miracles?

Today we celebrate the feast of our guardian angels. Angels are real.  They are not just figments of our imagination.  They may not always look the way we expect angels to look like – dressed in dazzling white and with pure white wings but their presence in our lives speak to us about God.

Last week we started our reflection on the 10 th article of the faith which is, I believe in the communion of the saints, and we talked about its implication particularly in our view of death, asserting the fact that we are spirits who happen to have bodies and thus we live forever.   We also asserted that   in life and in death we are a communion, we are one body under Christ and the only thing that can separate us, the only thing that excludes us from this communion is sin.   That is why when we commit a grave sin we are excommunicated, excommunio, we are excluded, we are expelled from the communion, sin expels us, sin cuts us out.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus.  Supposedly today is your fiesta because Assumption is part of the parish of Sta. Teresita.  The point is St. Therese is a patron and we entrust ourselves to her prayers and protection.  More than this however we look to her as a teacher of holiness.  Last night I have shown seminarians the book History of Spirituality , a thick book composed of two volumes and it narrates the history of spirituality from the start of Christianity until now.  It can be mind-boggling studying these two volumes.  But St. Therese simplified all of that with her childhood spirituality.  There are a lot of simple things that can become a path to holiness for us – simple things.  Today I would like to reflect on one path dear to the heart of St. Therese.  It is the virtue of obedience.  For Therese obedience is not just obedience which means to obey, to sacrifice one’s will, to bow down to ...

Humility is the root of all virtues, as its opposite, pride, is the root of all sin.  When a person is not humble, when a person is full of himself he cannot truly serve others for he will always be thinking about what’s in it for him.  When a person is full of himself he cannot truly love others because he will always prioritize his desires rather than sacrifice for the sake of the other.  When a person is not humble, when a person is full of himself he cannot tell the truth except when the truth is to his advantage.  Otherwise he lies.  When a person is full of himself he cannot have real friends.  He will try to buy them, he will try to bribe them but they will not stay for long, for real friendship requires an emptying of self, when a person begins to think of the good of the other. 

Humility is the root of all virtues, as its opposite, pride, is the root of all sin.  When a person is not humble, when a person is full of himself he cannot truly serve others for he will always be thinking about what’s in it for him.  When a person is full of himself he cannot truly love others because he will always prioritize his desires rather than sacrifice for the sake of the other.  When a person is not humble, when a person is full of himself he cannot tell the truth except when the truth is to his advantage.  Otherwise he lies.  When a person is full of himself he cannot have real friends.  He will try to buy them, he will try to bribe them but they will not stay for long, for real friendship requires an emptying of self, when a person begins to think of the good of the other. 

Humility is the root of all virtues as its opposite pride is the root of all vices.   When a person is not humble, when a person is full of himself he cannot truly serve others for he will always be thinking about what’s in it for him.   When a person is full of himself he cannot truly love others because he will always prioritize his desires rather than sacrifice for the sake of the other.   When a person is not humble, when a person is full of himself he cannot tell the truth except when the truth is to his advantage.   Otherwise he lies.   When a person is full of himself he cannot have real friends.   He will try to buy them, he will try to bribe them but they will not stay for long, for real friendship requires an emptying of self, when a person begins to think of the good of the other.  

The issue at hand in our gospel today is not simply that the man is rich or that he has no compassion for the poor man.  The issue at hand is that the wealth of the rich man is preventing him from seeing or relating to Lazarus as a fellow child of God.  If you notice even if he was already in the afterlife, his status as the rich man made him assume that he can order around those at the lower economic bracket – he told Abraham to tell Lazarus to do this and that for him.  He could not even talk directly to Lazarus but he assumed he could talk directly with Abraham.  Ka-level sila ni Abraham, pero indi sila ka-level ni Lazaro.